Brand and Product Management Lecture 2
Building Strong Brand Equity
- Companies should create knowledge about their brands in consumers’ minds. That is, to
create strong, positive and unique thoughts, feelings experiences, memories & beliefs about
their brands in consumers’ hearts and minds & create strong bonds and relations with
consumers.
- Those associations and knowledge are formed and reinforced by marketing activities of the
firm, as well as consumers experiences with the brand through time, and are called
Consumers Brand Knowledge.
- Every time brand becomes salient, those positive associations automatically become active
and spurs consumers to buy/consume our products.
- Brands are therefore symbols or flags that their presence (through exposure in
advertisements, in shopping centers, etc.,) suddenly and automatically activate a bundle of
(positive) associations, memories, feelings and thoughts among consumers, which
subsequently influence their purchase decisions and behavior.
,Building strong brand equity: it is NOT that easy though!
- Marketing managers have to make many, not very easy, decisions.
o Decision on Elements:
What image do we want to create?
Funny, serious, expensive, cheap?
What brand elements should we choose to reinforce our image? Sound?
Smell? Touch? Visual cues? What colors? What combination makes our
brand Sticky?
How should we change our brand elements without hurting our image?
What kind of emotions do we want to be associated with? Excitement?
Proud? Happiness? Fear? Disgust? Etc.,
Against smoking campaigns go for disgust, to what level should we go
that it don’t backfire?
What are the concepts we do NOT want to be associated with?
o Decision on Marketing Activities
What media to use for exposure? Online vs. Traditional? In what frequency?
How much budget do we have or should we invest in each campaign?
How are our competitors doing? How could we develop a competitive
advantage by designing our brand elements and applying sensory
marketing?
o What do consumers think about us and how could we make our brand stronger?
o How should we measure our progress? And many more decisions…..
YouTube: Timber; what does your brand sound like
One of the questions you have the answer when creating a brand
- These complex decisions often involve different domains of expertise, from engineering
sciences to social sciences to arts.
- Sometimes there might be agencies that provide consultancy services only for very special
and technical matters!
, Continuous process, if you lose it you probably don’t do it continuous.
Those who do is continuously, are superior in the market.
THE BODY SHOP
Desired image and associations: personal care and environmental concerns
- Price:
o Low-medium price policy while ensuring health and quality
- Place:
o Enthusiastic staff about environmental issues
o Detailed point-of-sale posters, brochures and displays in stores
- Products:
o natural ingredients only, never tested on animals
o Simple, refillable, recyclable packages
- Promotion:
o Online, as well as running local community programs, public relations
- Policies (part of their mission): Collaborating with small local producers from around the
world
How difficult is it to imitate Body Shop? Pretty easy to copy, no intangible assets. From talking to
their sales staff: if you buy a product, they don’t necessarily make you come back again. It is not
about touchpoints, handling touchpoint, smiling etc., it is about following up. People come to store
because of an issue, probably a sort of uncertainty they have, need to discover it and register it in our
database and follow up. Keep them coming.
